https://aliahd66.substack.com/p/in-defence-of-richa-chadha?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf

In defence of Richa Chadha

Nov 29

Hindutva had to deploy its big guns as Akshay Kumar and a former army chief to subdue Richa Chadha and her supporting artillery that included Prakash Raj. She was peremptorily tried by the godi media and held guilty of insulting the sacrifice of the Galwan Gallants. All she did was remind our brasshats that the sacrifice of these brave men should henceforth serve to ensure all military planning and operations be done with due diligence.

Chadha was entirely right in her concern. The Galwan incident was prompted by ill considered orders on part of the chain of command. Rashly ordered, the commanding officer valiantly led his men into what turned out to be an ambush. That two months into the crisis and the brasshats were unable to make out its nature speaks for itself. To Chadha, any future military actions must bear the impression of the lesson from Galwan: due diligence.

Chadha was reacting to the northern army commander’s indication that the military is ready and capable of taking Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) when ordered by the government. He was only reiterating what his corps commander in Srinagar had said only a few days earlier. Both were queried on the defence minister’s statement that India aimed to take POK.

So long as the military leadership remembered the chief lesson from Galwan, there is no second guessing them as to whether they can or should go about fulfilling the defence minister’s desire. Chadha’s was only a timely reminder – if colourfully put due to the nature of the means of communication used and the nature of those in showbiz.

Her antagonists trolled her for assuming that the brasshats would be unable to deliver on what they had publicly taken on. They assumed that she was calling out the military for incompetence and pointing out that the military couldn’t take POK. Since the military has been toast of multiple seasons lately, it is understandable if the Hindutva troll army unthinkingly rises to its defence.

That the military needs defending by trolls itself suggests that it is on a sticky wicket. Its boast cannot be allowed to pass uncontested. Whereas Chadha perhaps guessed that the brass might be biting off more than they can chew, it is worth querying if the military can indeed be gung-ho about taking POK.

Without doubt, POK, as hitherto, will figure in any future military tryst. The 1947 War is famous for its battles for Poonch, Uri, Tithwal and Zoji La. The 1965 War is famous for the victory at Haji Pir. In 1971 War, the active front was in Kargil, that turned out stage setting for the subsequent information age war.

That there are plausible military plans to take POK can be expected since that’s what militaries do: make and practice war plans. If ordered to take POK, the military operations branch will dust up the most suitable one and its strike formations will be put to it. Plans can be expected to be cognisant of the lesson from Galwan – due diligence.

However, it is not so pat. Confidence in the military has withered lately. It has visibly traded professional high ground for political approbation. Its leadership has allowed itself to be enticed by foregrounding of military in the political scheme of things. Dalliance with politics exacts a price off professionalism.

Theory has it that professionalism – a characteristic of the officer corps - is a mix of expertise, responsibility and representation. The military brass has military expertise, based on which it performs representative and advisory roles. At the political-military interface or the grand strategic-strategic interstices, the military has to input national security policy and decisions. It is not a mere receptacle of orders.

Therefore, for the two commanders to successively highlight obedience to orders is to skip over the more consequential question implicit: whether such orders received the benefit of the military’s intellectual rigour in first place? Their wilful distracting from the meat of the issue begs the question: Why?

Today, the shadow of Ladakh looms over the military. The army was caught napping, albeit not wholly on its own, but along with the diplomats and the intelligence establishment. Its listless showing in wake of the Chinese intrusions cannot be laid at Covid’s door alone. That it was let of the hook was only self-serving on part of the security establishment. Accountability would have required also asking questions of blue-eyed Doval and Jaishankar.

To compensate, the army has since indulged in an illusion of activity over two winters in the high Himalayas, that has witnessed it all dressed up with nowhere to go. The excuse that Chinese, similarly arrayed, compel our weathering the weather is useful. It bears reminding as we head into the third winter the situation on own side is not as conducive to sitting out multiple winters. Tales from Ladakhi herders denied access to grazing areas do not help justify the deployment.

Is lassitude on the China front being compensated for by breathing fire and brimstone on the lesser neighbour, Pakistan? It makes sense to bully Pakistan, and be seen to be tough, than push back China and be exposed.

Neglected is the aspect that revealing our hand prematurely on POK we deny ourselves the opportunity for a quick grab in the next India-Pakistan joust. Pakistan, alerted to a potential objective, will have locked the barn door. This is of a piece with India’s tentative grab of Kailash Range during the crisis in Ladakh. Had we rolled down then to Rudok and Moldo, we could’ve pulled off a coup. With Chinese coming up with a bridge across Pangong Tso to help reinforce the area, it is now denied us in perpetuity.

What Rajnath Singh had in mind is uncertain. While POK surely figures in his thinking, by his reference to India marching ‘north’, he perhaps also meant Northern Areas (NA). While POK has the underside of having a Punjabised population, that can only spell trouble for any occupying power, Indians perhaps believe – for no discernible reason - that the largely Shia populace further north might be more welcoming.

Going northwards, rather than westwards, from the Kashmir Valley would be to go for the jugular – of both Pakistan and its army. With Indian Navy locking down Karachi and the Makran coast and the land route to China nipped, Pakistan would be on the mat soon enough – or goes the reasoning.

That it would upturn the China Pakistan Economic Corridor and what that might mean for riling China appears not to deter India. It could provoke the ‘two-front’ war, with China using its launchpad at Depsang to push westwards – threatening India’s east flank resting on Siachen as India bites away northwards. Indian information warriors are blissfully unconcerned.  

As for going westwards, to complete what Indian military heroes - Harbaksh, Thimayya and Cariappa - didn’t get to, the logic that kicked in some 75 years ago only stands reinforced today. Back then, the argument for stopping India’s military action was that the area, being largely Punjabi-oriented, was outside the reach of political persuasion of the pro-India Kashmiri political elite. Even if taking it was doable militarily, it would be hard to swallow and digest politically. Today, it would be impossible to retain for the simple reason that if keeping Kashmir down after 30 years of counter insurgency is a bother, taking on additional demographic terrain would be imbecility.

This begs the question, what then was the purpose of Rajnath Singh piping up and having two of his senior military commanders lend the authority of their uniform to justify his tilting at the windmills.

It is easy to see the reason in the political perspective at which he – a political bigwig – operates. As a full-time Hindutva busybody and part-time defence minister, he is only voicing what Hindutva ideologues are wont to – complete the unfinished business of Partition.

Superficially, this involves only taking territory encompassed by calendar art, that has Bharat Mata in the foreground to Akhand Bharat as background. This explains the cultural claim to Pakistan occupied areas using motifs as Sharada Peeth. Thus, Singh’s was a political performance.

Did the military necessarily need to follow? Did it think through its participation in an essentially political caper? Did the push back when the information operation was thought up?

That the military did not do so suggests either its politically ingenuous or politically inclined. The former can no longer serve as excuse since the latter is not so far-fetched anymore. The military has also started speaking political gobbledegook. As per the retiree recently elevated to its top post, General Anil Chauhan, the Indian military is now seeing itself as defending ‘the ideology on which the state is based and the values it promotes.’

On the face of it, military objectives following political aims is explicable. However, political aims deriving from a partisan political ideology – in this case Hindutva – cannot merely be received by the military. A military must exercise its right of input in formulation of political aims, basing such input on strategic factors.

If taking Northern Areas is important to tearing asunder a relationship between the antagonist allies in a two-front situation, then it makes military sense to ‘go for it’. Even so, war gaming this shows that attempting to do so will create a two-front threat where none necessarily exists.

Advances must then have limits, for instance, up till the Neelum riverline. Expansive military objectives as an advance down the Jhelum, or, in the south of the Pir Panjal, till the Jhelum riverline, need leavening with strategic sense.

At the strategic level – the level at which an army commander is located – conversation between the political and strategic levels should ensue. The military’s is a duty of obedience to the political level, but not as an uncritical cadet to a drill ustad. It must demand such a conversation. Institutions must be geared to facilitating such a conversation. Its expertise-based input must be welcomed by the political leadership. Obedience to orders is predicated on participation in their formulation.  

There is no dearth of examples on military commanders being more than merely obedient cogs:

·       Legendary Field Marshal Ervin Rommel routinely trashed Nazi instructions on mistreating non-Aryan ethnic groups or prisoners of war.

·       As commander in East Pakistan, Sahibzada Yakub Khan’s refusal to follow orders from Karachi is a stellar example of resignation on the right course to take on disagreeing with an operational directive.

·       General John Hyten, when commander of the United States’ Strategic Forces Command, gave out the appropriate response to illegal orders. Assuming that these had emanated out of ignorance, he said that he would advise the president on the right course and revised await orders.

·       General Mark Milley once said that orders received after remonstration can be complied with, without recourse to resignation. The political head has ‘the right to be wrong’. For the military level to press beyond a point is to usurp the political level’s privilege to overrule the military and being accountable for any adverse results.

·       After Operation Parakram’s mobilisation phase, General Rustam Nanavatty provided his input on the Northern Command’s readiness to execute operations in snow bound POK. In the event, his expert input apparently was consequential in the manner the operation unfolded.

·       The back and forth between Calcutta and Delhi on the military objectives of the 1971 operation in East Pakistan is instructive. There was the staff channel between Jacob and Inder Gill and the command channel between Aurora and Manekshaw. Military history has it that the former pressed for an expansive interpretation of the political directive. However, at the political-military interface, it is uncertain if military commanders were given the flexibility to choose between an expansive and restrictive interpretation or did they bottom-up seize it wilfully.

Presuming that General Dwivedi, the northern army commander, has had the benefit of his advice on POK being pondered upon, he has little recourse but to obey – as he affirmed. That he has given away his hand, however, indicates that the exercise in the context of the situation in Kashmir is one of psychological coercion of Pakistan.

It only makes sense as a information war exercise with India is preparing to rig an outcome of the forthcoming elections in Kashmir palatable to Hindutva. India would prefer continuing dormancy of Pakistan’s proxy war. Rather than have the new Pakistan Army chief, Asim Munir, depart from the Bajwa doctrine that well-served mutual interests (even if it turned out from leaked income tax returns, the doctrine did serve Bajwa’s personal interest too), India has chosen to deter him by psychological operations at the very outset of his innings.

It could also well be strategic deception, in that, knowing that taking POK would be rather a mouthful, India is pretending to be prepared to open its mouth wide. The deception could tie down Pakistani army in anticipatory defence of POK, while, instead, India went about, for instance, a ‘Sialkot grab’.

That other possibilities suggest themselves owes to strategic disarray in the regime. Impetus, otherwise outlandish, cannot be rejected outright. For instance, it is not impossible to visualise the regime taking home a lesson from the Ukraine war that if Russia can leisurely help itself to mouthfuls off Ukraine, why cannot India salami slice its pound of flesh off Pakistan? As a wit has it: If Ukraine can wish to retake Crimea, why cannot India take POK? What China can get away with doing to India, why can't India with Pakistan?

Richa Chadha perhaps intuited that the military needs cautioning. Granddaughter of a military man, she is no doubt part of the attentive public that follows military matters. Since the full story of Galwan will not be written on the watch of this regime, dismissively tweeting that a ‘little-known actor’ said something ‘stupid’ is disservice to India’s success in forging a strategic culture wherein citizens’ are sensitive to the military’s concerns. A thriving strategic culture holds the military – and the political hand on the military rudder – accountable. The military better get used to it.

 

Cambridge University Special Regulations' PhD report

The First (internal) Examiner's report

The Second (external) Examiner's report

 

 https://southasianvoices.org/agni-prime-and-the-two-front-war/

Agni Prime and the Two-Front War

The Agni Prime (also known as the Agni-P and Agni-IP) has been tested thrice off the Odisha coast in under two years, with its first test in June 2021. The third, most recent test on October 21 came during  India’s defense expo in Gujarat, allowing India to demonstrate the Agni Prime as the sixth successful missile from the Agni series.

The Agni Prime is a step up for the Agni series: it is canisterized, road-mobile, and has multiple reentry vehicle capability. With a range of 1000-2000 km, it is geared to target Pakistan and may supplement or substitute the Prithvi II, Agni I and Agni II missiles.

The accuracy of Agni Prime – reportedly in the lower two digits – has created speculation that it confers a counterforce capability and reenergized discussion over whether India has counterforce intentions. Analysts discerned as much from the technological trajectory of India’s deterrent, fearing that this renders India’s “No First Use” (NFU) pledge shaky.

One can expect India to profit from the debate generated. India’s nuclear doctrinal movement of ambiguity lately builds uncertainty on India’s intentions and action. In the current context of the  two-front war threat, nuclear ambiguity helps India leverage its nuclear deterrent – without actually resorting to nuclear weapons. The Agni Prime launch and the subsequent debate it generated compensate for India’s challenges in coping with the two-front threat posed by China and Pakistan.

The Catalyzing Two-Front War Factor

Over the last two years, India has already taken diplomatic steps to confront its vulnerability to a two-front war scenario. After the 2020 Galwan clashes, India has managed to partially roll back Chinese intrusions in Ladakh through military-level discussions and quiet diplomacy. India also agreed to a ceasefire on the Line of Control with Pakistan in secret, third-party facilitated talks.

India has taken steps at the conventional level, including a pivot of its conventional forces from its western to its northern borders. It has also started to reorganize its forces on both fronts into integrated battle groups (IBG). It is appraising reorganization with front-specific Integrated Theatre Commands.

On the nuclear level, India continues to incrementally put together the earlier envisaged elements of its triad. But its seaborne leg would not be potent until the K-4 ballistic missile, which had two back-to-back test firings from a submerged platform in January 2020, is fired from either nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant or soon-to-be-commissioned INS Arighat.

The Air Force’s concentration on winning the air war under two-front war conditions places a premium on air-delivered nuclear ordinance, since such operations divert a high number of aircraft from its primary role.

India’s nuclear triad places greater emphasis on land-based systems due to the sea leg being a work-in-progress and its air-leg’s availability only at a premium. The technological edge in the Agni IV and Agni V missiles, meant to deter China, has been transferred to Pakistan-centric Agni Prime. India has also substituted the Pakistan-specific Prithvi series with the Prahaar, Pralay, and Shaurya missiles, which all have varying ranges.

Agni Prime in the Two-Front War Scenario

In a worst-case scenario of a two-front war, the Indian military  would find itself stretched with its current capabilities. Consequently, India may have to compensate by leveraging its nuclear-level to deter and, if need be, redress potential conventional imbalances and quandaries. The nuclear signaling between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at multiple junctures in the ongoing Ukraine war has loosened the constraints on nuclear posturing, allowing India to leverage its prevailing doctrinal ambiguity to good effect in a short timeframe.

The Agni Prime missile was under development before the Ladakh crisis, with its conceptual inception beginning sometime mid-last decade. However, even at the time, the two-front war thinking in India was over half a decade old. Whereas technological advance has taken their course, doctrinal thinking has not been far behind. 

An accurate, canisterized, road-mobile missile has the advantage of speed of response against point targets. This development has fueled apprehensions of a destabilizing shift in India’s nuclear posture, given that it is now able to take out hardened targets housing Pakistan’s strategic systems comprising Pakistan’s second strike capability.

India has done little to forestall the fears, with successive defense ministers making loose statements on NFU. India has thus used the fears generated to cover its nuclear intentions with ambiguity. The  Agni Prime has validated the perspective on India’s nuclear capability that it is shifting away from traditional moorings towards jettisoning NFU and contemplating counter-force options; this helps India’s shift towards deterrence leveraging ambiguity over its earlier preference for transparency.

Prosecuting a Two-Front War

Indian strategists would designate a priority front (also referred to as the primary front) and a secondary front, fighting to stabilize or generate a favorable outcome on the priority front while keeping the secondary front as dormant as possible. India could subsequently switch the designation once the primary front has stabilized or if, in the interim, developments on the secondary front compel greater attention and devotion of resources.

If Pakistan is designated initially as the priority front, then India’s new-fangled IBGs could be unleashed on the border to keep it in check. The popular scenario has it that a conventionally-disadvantaged Pakistan could resort to nuclear weapons as part of its full spectrum deterrence doctrine, by way of either signaling with or introducing tactical nuclear weapons into the conflict.

Even if Pakistan is initially not the primary front, since India would be keeping up a holding action, it could complement its hard-put conventional forces efforts with nuclear warnings, thereby deterring Pakistan from taking advantage of its psychological ascendancy.

In a two-front war scenario, Pakistan, as one part of a collusive alliance, will be fairly confident of taking on India. However, it is unlikely that nuclear weapons will likely figure in its war repertoire. Besides, with considerable dilution in India’s Pakistan-specific forces after the Chinese intrusion, Pakistan may be better positioned conventionally than India.

Consequently, India might require leveraging nuclear weapons to stabilize the front quickly before it could revert its attention to the China front. Bringing nuclear weapons into the foreground through nuclear signaling will help concentrate minds. India has already set the stage by building in ambiguity and generating nuclear fears in third parties, incentivizing them to intervene with de-escalatory initiatives.

 Nuclear signaling on the Pakistan front will also put China on notice: cautioning it against crossing Indian redlines, slowing operations by necessitating protective measures, and forcing a reevaluation of its war aims in light of nuclear dynamics. Agni Prime’s utility is not without relevance on the China front with its range encompassing portions of the Tibetan plateau, allowing for counter military options in the worst case of conventional asymmetry with China and Chinese military break throughs, necessitating Indian reconsideration of its NFU.  

 

Conclusion

The configuration of Agni Prime and the subsequent discussion it has instigated on nuclear dangers helps India with navigating the challenges it might face in a two-front war scenario. In war, national security concerns dictate the use of all instruments, including the appropriate employment of nuclear weapons. The appropriate use for nuclear weapons is to strengthen in-conflict deterrence. Escalation prevention is made possible by brinkmanship, the instigating and deploying of a fear of a war going nuclear.

Pre-conflict ambiguity surrounding the deterrent posture enables shifting the nuclear goalposts in war. India’s intent to stay in Pakistan’s nuclear hand will be better met by conveying its abandonment of nuclear sobriety. The Agni Prime lends credibility to India’s shift to nuclear brinkmanship in case confronted with the worst-case scenario of a two-front war.

 

 

 Download the PhD text from https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3qe0obnat22iac/full%20text.pdf?dl=0

of which the abstract submitted with the PhD is below: 

ABSTRACT: Ph.D. THESIS

 

INDIA’S LIMITED WAR DOCTRINE:

STRUCTURAL, POLITICAL AND ORGANISATIONAL FACTORS

Introduction

 

In the wake of the Kargil War, India developed a Limited War doctrine.  The doctrine has evolved from preceding military developments going back over four decades. The study set out to examine the impetus behind India’s conventional doctrines in light of nuclearisation. The puzzle that this dissertation has set out to address has been: Why has India gone in for a proactive offensive doctrine despite nuclearisation? The understanding prior to nuclearisation was that deterrence in light of the nuclear backdrop would make conventional contest obsolescent. Strategic stability would result in conflict resolution and an outbreak of peace. India’s formidable power indices in the region and its status as a power without any extra-territorial ambitions could have reasonably been expected to have combined to make for a deterrent military doctrine. Instead, there has been a turn to a more offensive conventional doctrine by India, redolent with compellence. This departure of reality from expectations prompted the research question: ‘What accounts for the change to an offensive conventional doctrine?’ Thus, the aim of the dissertation was to understand the impetus behind development of India’s Limited War doctrine

 

In the chronological narrative, inception of the doctrine is at a conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in wake of the Kargil War. The Kargil War had brought home to the Indian military that there was a conventional space between the subconventional and nuclear threshold for military exploitation. Even as conceptualisation of the change was underway, the ‘twin peaks’ crisis intervened. The limitations of India’s ‘all or nothing’ approach that had hither to been dependent on strike corps being launched after mobilisation was found wanting. The 2004 document was an outcome of the ‘lessons learnt’. It would appear from such a reading that structural level factors, principally threat perception, were responsible for the change. However, there is a need to go investigate further given that during the period of development of the doctrine certain changes in India’s strategic culture were occurring, informed in the main by the advent of cultural nationalism. The nationalist impulse favoured an assertive India at home in the creation of power and exercise of force. The impact has been in an offensive turn to doctrine when mediated by a military organisational predisposed to the offensive. There is also the need to look ‘into the box’. At the organisational level is the military as part of the wider the national security establishment. Overt nuclearisation of 1998 had transformed the verities of this complex. The doctrinal output in the aftermath of outbreak of the nuclear age in the subcontinent can therefore equally legitimately be explicated as a result of organisational impulse at self-preservation in first place and secondly, of extension in terms role expansion. Given the coincidence of three possible explanations, the dissertation adopted a ‘multi-level and multidimensional approach’ to understand the factors behind change.

 

India’s Limited War doctrine

 

The doctrine, in nutshell, countenances a quick mobilisation followed by multiple offensives across a wide front. The doctrine caters for the changed nuclear reality by envisaging that military advances would be to limited depth in light of possible nuclear thresholds. This study examines the nuclear dangers that attend even such limitation. These escalatory possibilities give rise to the questioning of the doctrine and consequently as to how and why it has been arrived at. Limitation has been brought about by the need to avoid triggering the envisaged nuclear thresholds of Pakistan. These are taken to be along four dimensions: military attrition, territorial losses, economic viability and internal stability. Concerted offensive action by the Indian military would simultaneously nudge all four thresholds directly and indirectly. The cumulative physical and psychological impact could unhinge and lower the nuclear retaliation threshold. To obviate such breakdown in nuclear deterrence, India’s nuclear deterrence is based on ‘assured retaliation’, with the proviso that such reaction could well be of higher order or ‘massive’ levels. It would appear that the promise of ‘unacceptable damage’ is to heighten the adversary’s nuclear threshold in order to provide space for the offensive posture of Cold Start. This explains India’s adaptation of the nuclear deterrence concept to its purpose and circumstance. India believes nuclear weapons deter nuclear weapons and not war. Thus, there appears scope for war, albeit a Limited War. Nevertheless, learning and reflection have contributed to a move away from Limited War towards the end of the last decade. This recent distancing from Cold Start indicates that there has finally been an intellectual adaptation to the imperatives of the nuclear age.  

 

Research question and hypothesis

 

The answer to the key question (‘What accounts for the change to an offensive conventional doctrine?’) can be discerned at the separate ‘levels of analysis’. These are systemic level, state level, of the organisation and that of the individual decision maker. Adopting this approach to strategic analysis, the dissertation attempts to find the impulse for doctrinal change in India at three levels, the individual level being excluded. The study follows the inductive approach.

 

At the structural level, the regional security situation has impacted India’s strategic posture. At this level, primarily was the threat posed by Pakistan, India’s revisionist neighbour. Given its revisionist aims and weak power status, Pakistan went nuclear covertly. This has accounted for its venturesome in prosecuting proxy war. India was consequently forced to respond with restraint, both at Kargil and during Operation Parakram. Emulating Pakistan, it reworked its doctrine to exploit the space between sub-conventional level and the nuclear threshold for conventional operations. This was in accord with the tenets of Limited War concept. The expectation is that an offensive posture would reinforce deterrence.

 

The second level of analysis is the ‘unit’ level. At the national level, there has been a change towards an assertive strategic culture in India. Political developments, particularly advent of ‘cultural nationalism’ more sensitive to national security, has been consequential for this change. Concurrent developments in terms of growing power capabilities through economic liberalization, acquisition of nuclear capability and positioning of India as an Asian power and potential global player, have led to evolution in strategic culture. The link between the national level political developments and changes in doctrine is provided by the intervening organisational culture. The culture permeating the organisation is a professional one, valuing the warrior ethic. It privileges conventional war fighting and preparedness. Together, the change in strategic culture and a pre-existing offensive organisational culture account for the proactive offensive doctrine. 

 

At the next lower level, that of the organisation, nuclearisation rendered conventional operations problematic due to prospects of escalation. The general understanding is that utility of conventional force is threatened by obsolescence in a nuclear age. Limited War thinking has helped keep the armed forces relevant into the nuclear age. It has enabled all three Services to seek a fresh mandate in light of the nuclearised backdrop. This has benefits for institutional interest such as maintaining respective self-image, relative salience in the nuclearised context and autonomy from intrusive civilian control. This perspective looks ‘inside the box’, at the interaction between Service culture, inter-Service rivalry and organisational processes giving rise to the new doctrine.

 

The hypotheses that emerge at the three levels of analysis are:

 

• The structural level: The change in India’s military doctrine has been due to continuing external security threats.

 

• The unit level: The change in India’s military doctrine owes to evolution of Indian strategic culture. 

 

• The organisational level: The change in India’s military doctrine has been to preserve the military’s institutional interest.

 

Layout of the study

 

The conceptual layout of the dissertation is as per the levels of analysis. This has dictated its chapterisation. Chapter 2 is analytical in dealing with the doctrines in question, the Cold Start doctrine in particular. It is descriptive in tracing doctrinal change over the past four decades in a historical look at the evolution of Indian conventional and nuclear doctrine. It seeks to establish the shift from a defensive strategic doctrine to a proactive one. It also discusses processes of doctrine formulation and change in the Services. It reflects on the conventional-nuclear interface that is at the heart of Limited War concept and doctrine. In Chapter 3 on the ‘Structural Factor’, India’s regional strategic predicament is dealt with to bring out how land warfare doctrine in particular has adapted. The change in threat perceptions over time, brought on largely due to Pakistan’s proxy war, is discussed. The effects of the nuclearisation in emboldening Pakistan are studied in their impact on Indian doctrine, both strategic and military. Chapter 4 is on the ‘political factor’ at the unit level. It draws on cultural theory to argue that strategic culture has evolved under influence of changes in the regional security environment and internal political developments in India. Since it is difficult to trace impact of strategic culture on doctrine directly, the intervening variable of organisational culture has been incorporated. An organisational culture that privileges an offensive warrior ethic lends itself to strategic assertion. This is found reflected in the more expansive doctrines the military has engaged with over the past decade.  The fifth chapter on the organisational factor draws on organisational process and bureaucratic politics models to account for the change in doctrine. The concluding chapter carries an assessment of the relative validity of the three hypotheses based on the three drivers of doctrine at differing levels – structural, unit and organisational. The chapter seeks the primary impetus behind doctrinal change in India.

 

Parameters

 

The study restricts the scope to the India-Pakistan equation. The ‘Cold Start’ doctrine is not applicable to China, even though the Limited War concept has applicability to that front. It is inconceivable that either state would engage in a wider conflict in light of potential of war to derail their very promising economic trajectories. Discussions on airpower doctrine, naval doctrine and sub-conventional doctrine are included to make this a study one of military doctrine, as against more narrowly focussed on land warfare doctrine. ‘Cold Start’, though an Army doctrine, serves as a peg for the discussion. The period covered is from 1971 War to bring out the doctrinal changes from a defensive doctrine of the seventies to a deterrent doctrine in the eighties. The quasi compellent doctrine of developed over the last decade is thus placed in the context of its evolution.

 

The case study method has been adopted so as to provide scope for an elaborate - ‘thick’ - description of doctrinal change. A multi-disciplinary approach straddling strategic studies, international relations, domestic politics and military sociology is inescapable. This entails studying strategic literature, particularly in-service publications for thinking on Limited War and its justification, and corresponding commentary output of the strategic community. The Cold Start doctrine is traced elliptically through well-publicised exercises with troops and the plethora of commentaries on it since. Illuminating thinking within the Services has been done through access to dissertations of officers on courses at the Army War College (AWC), Mhow, and National Defence College (NDC), New Delhi. The War College Journal (earlier Combat Journal) and the USI Journal have also served to access Service opinion. The interview technique for data collection has not been used since the thesis is concerned with doctrine that is currently operational in the Services. It is for this reason that the individual level that is taken as the lowest level of analysis, has not been touched on in this dissertation.

 

Reviewing the drivers

 

The structural factor

 

In realist theory, the world order is taken anarchic and power balancing is the manner states ensure their survival and security. This is in the form of internal balancing, in which the internal potential of the state is leveraged, and external balancing, in which alignments amounting at times to alliances are forged to offset threats. Military power is consequential in such balancing. Strategic doctrine lends the power orientation to a state by determining its external posture. This places the state along a defensive-compellence continuum. The location of the state on this shapes the creation, deployment and employment of military power. The function of military doctrine is to lend coherence to the military instrument of power. In effect, strategic doctrine of a state determines its military doctrine, with strategic doctrine being the political level approach to power and its instrumentality. The independent variable is at the structural level in terms of the prevalent power equations and corresponding threat perception. Strategic doctrine is the intervening variable and military doctrine is the dependent variable.

 

The threat posed by Pakistan has been manifest at the subconventional level over the last three decades.  In the eighties there was also the apprehension that Pakistan could follow up its subconventional proxy war with conventional war. In response, India’s strategic doctrine moved from defensive in the seventies to deterrence in the eighties with mechanisation. India’s military doctrine was increasingly in favour of the offensive to the extent by the first edition of the written doctrine in 1998, it discoursed on an intention to fight the war on enemy territory. By the end of the eighties recessed deterrence was in place. This made India’s mechanised advantage recede, though military doctrine did not move correspondingly. This lack of movement in military doctrine owed to the military being out of the nuclear loop, the assumption that nuclear deterrence based on counter value targeting would hold and an internal fixation with counter insurgency over the nineties. It was only with over nuclearisation and the Kargil War that the military was forced to contend with an obsolescent military doctrine. This was impelled by a movement in strategic posture from deterrence to coercion and quasi-compellence as demonstrated by Operation Parakram. It was only in wake of Operation Parakram that the military formulated the Limited War doctrine, discerning a window below the nuclear threshold to bring conventional advantages to bear. The current strategic doctrine goes by the term strategy of deterrence. This implies a reversion to deterrence, but one refurbished by heightening defence budgets over the decade. The direction of the future is a movement away from Limited War doctrine, since this is seen as potentially disruptive of the national economic trajectory. The military is therefore contemplating contingency operations, with Limited War as a possibility brought on by Pakistani reaction.

 

The political factor

 

The next lower level of analysis is the unit level. Cultural theory has it that there are three cultures to be contended with at this level: political culture, strategic culture and organisational culture. Political culture is a site of ideological and intellectual competition between strategic elites. It determines control over the levers of the state. 
This considerably involved concept has not been gone into in this dissertation from point of view of retention of focus.  Instead, strategic culture has been taken as the independent variable, organisational culture the intervening variable and military doctrine as the dependent variable.

 

The George Tanham thesis (1992, 1996) had it that India lacked a strategic culture and to the extent it did have one it was defensive. Kanti Bajpai (2002) characterizes Indian strategic culture as collage-like in subsuming multiple strategic subcultures: Nehruvian, neoliberal and hyper-nationalist. India’s early post-independence period was of ascendance of the Nehruvian paradigm that relied on internationalism and diplomacy rather than self-interest narrowly defined and military power. It was followed by a turn to a more assertive and pragmatic strategic culture in the form of the Indira doctrine. The strategic culture privileged self-interest defined in terms of power. Changes in India’s political culture can be traced to the early eighties with the advent of cultural nationalism. The political ascendance of the conservative nationalist forces enabled India’s overt nuclearisation. A cultural theoretical interpretation would have it that this has less to do with strategic appreciation but equally if not more to do with a sense of identity, concept of the national self and prestige. Even as political culture has witnessed the shift in centre of gravity of politics from the left to the right in the transition from the socialist to the liberalization era, the strategic culture too has been under change. There has been a movement to greater assertion of power. This was clearly visible in the eighties and accounted for India’s seeming overreach. In the nineties, the assertiveness of strategic culture was less externally directed and more internally directed in India’s military predominant tackling of internal problems. Nuclearisation was a result in part of an assertive strategic culture, unwilling to subordinate itself to imposition of a global non-proliferation regime. Persistence of the Pakistani challenge in face of this assertive turn to strategic culture resulted in an offensive strategic culture. This explains the strategic doctrine of quasi compellence to cope with the Pakistan challenge over the turn of the century.

 

Organisational culture in the Indian case has all along been receptive to an assertive strategic culture. This can be seen in the civil-military tensions surrounding the Nehruvian doctrine even as it unfolded prior to the 1962 War. The loss in the war only deepened organisational cultural proclivities in favour of use of force purposefully and forcefully. The 1971 War was the climax and its validation. An offensive bias has therefore been a cultural trait of the military, even in face of the static, defensive mindset brought on by the notion that no loss of territory was politically acceptable. Therefore, when political level changes impacted strategic culture, the military made the conventional option usable despite nuclearisation since there was a congruence between strategic culture and organisational culture. It helped end the impunity enjoyed by Pakistan’s recourse to the stability/instability paradox. This resulted in the Limited War doctrine countenancing proactive offensives. Therefore it can be said that change in strategic culture towards a more assertive one over the past three decades, mediated by an amenable organisational culture, has led to the offensive doctrine. This has validated the hypothesis, limited to noting the correspondence.

 

The Organisational factor

 

The independent variable in the case study has been taken as organisational interest with the dependent variable being doctrine. Organisational or institutional interests include survival, autonomy, scope of role, budgets, prestige, relative salience, control of environment etc. Organisational process is geared to facilitating these for the organisation. The processes and the internal disharmony have been reflected on in detail to draw up a more accurate picture of the internal reality of the military. This has been a necessary filling of the gap in literature. The fact that the military has professional autonomy in the doctrinal function is evident from the deficiencies in higher defence organisation as also the ministry’s traditionally hands-off policy. This means that the organisation sets its own terms. That organisational interests would then have wider play is axiomatic, even if the rationale is taken as fulfilment as an organisationally defined national obligation.

 

Bureaucratic fights that result of organisational pursuit of institutional interests with other organisations similarly engaged, is explained by bureaucratic politics. This is amply brought out in India’s case in terms of turf war between the military and the civilian bureaucracy and the intra-military, between the Army and Air Force. This has been attributed here to essentially being a face-off over doctrine. The civil-military divide, absence of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) and lack of articulation of strategic doctrine make the organisational defence of self-conceived doctrine more compelling. This results in bureaucratic fights of greater severity since each organisation is not necessarily pursuing ‘parochial’ interests, but is engaged in persuading the environment of the efficacy of its doctrinal position and its follow on implications such as for higher defence organisation, war strategy etc. 

 

 

The finding is that the explanation at this level has greater salience than is generally attributed to it in strategic literature. In effect the neglect of this factor and level of analysis is unjustified. Given the lack of focus on this in literature, it has been possible only to reveal a correspondence rather than arrive at a causal link. But future research in terms of accessing the individual level on availability later of memoirs of those who have participated in doctrine generation will be able to uncover more significant links.

 

Prioritisation of drivers

 

The foregoing brings out that there is reasonable and sufficient evidence for the three factors to be considered as drivers. The impetus to Indian doctrine is at all three levels. In this case study on the Limited War doctrine, the finding is that at the structural level, doctrine has been a response to India’s Pakistan predicament. At the unit level, the political factor involving a shift in strategic culture accounts for the Limited War doctrine. Lastly, at the organisational level, as expected from theory, perceived failure of conventional deterrence in the outbreak of Kargil War and an inability to react appropriately to the parliament attack, led to doctrinal evolution. This was further prompted by existing inter-Service doctrinal competition to determine India’s military doctrine for the nuclear age. Overall, it can be said that the primary impetus from among the three is difficult to discern. Instead, all three are complementary factors responsible for doctrine.

 

Major findings

 

Policy relevance:  The foremost policy relevant conclusion is that India needs to arrive at an explicit Limited War doctrine. This must be cognizant of the nuclear-conventional interface. It needs as a prerequisite to first make the structural changes necessary, in particular the creation of the CDS. Even so, it must be mindful that Limited War has its limitations and the nascent impulse distancing the military from a default resort to Limited War, as the term ‘Cold Start’ suggests, should be taken to its logical conclusion.

 

Case study relevance: Objectively, it is difficult to determine, which of the three drivers was most prominent. However, it can be said that crediting the structural factor is, as is the wont in Indian strategic writings, is not sustainable. The explanation in cultural theory has been found to be more consequential than is admitted to.

 

Theory relevance: From a single case study, it is not possible to generalise as to which of the three theories, namely, ‘balance of power’, cultural theory and organisational theory, has comparative merit. The research design has not catered for judging this. Suffice it to maintain that all are relevant and cannot be discounted. This makes doctrine generation multi-causal. Given that realism remains the dominant paradigm, development of the latter two theories helps as their comparative relevance stands demonstrated in this case study. In particular, the comparative weight of cultural theory and realism appears in favour of the former in this case.

 

Conclusion

 

The study has focused on what drives military doctrine development in India. It has looked at the three levels of analysis – structural, unit and organisational - for answers. The three theories – realism, cultural theory and organisational theory - have been employed to arrive at the drivers. The finding has been that all three have explanatory value and that the drivers exist at the three levels, making doctrine making a case of equi-finality. Its examination of conventional doctrine has been of an under-studied area in India. While nuclear doctrine and counter insurgency doctrine, that have aura of urgency, have had attention, conventional doctrine has remained elusive. The study has historical significance in tracing the formulation and eclipse of India’s Cold Start doctrine over the century’s first decade. The doctrine was conceptualized as brought out in January 2000 and the military is currently in the process of moving away from the doctrine towards one that is more adapted to the defining reality of the periods – the nuclear dimension. The study has engaged with a problem of contemporary relevance in its being pitched at the conventional-nuclear interface. The limitation parameters have therefore been highlighted with the policy relevant finding being that limitation needs to attend both the conventional and nuclear realms of military application. India needs therefore to reset its strategic doctrine to defensive realism.  An implication of reliance on defensive realism is for a return to deterrence with a defensive bias on the Pakistan front. Military doctrine would move further into making military power less usable. This would be in keeping with the principal dictate of the nuclear age.